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Countdown IN December

Posted on Friday, November 30, 2012

So did you win the Powerball? No, I know you didn’t, just as you know I didn’t. But we can put that behind us now. Time to look ahead. Why not play the NEXT Powerball? Fewer people will be buying and there’s less of a chance you’ll have to split the jackpot with somebody else. Don’t you feel sorry for those two winners who will have to divide that $580 million two ways? Yeah, me too.

As I say, we need to look ahead. December will soon be upon us, and, after that the New Year, full of possibilities. (Not as full as it would have been with half a billion dollars, but we’re not going to talk about that any more.) What have we to look forward to?

Well, 2013 will be the first year in a quarter of a century in which all four digits are different. The last time this happened was 1987. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but now it is particularly significant, because once 2013 actually begins, I won’t have any reason to mention that factoid again. (Like that 500 million that went to somebody else. Nope, not gonna say a word about it.)

This is also the last year that we’ll be able to say “Wow! The month, day, and year all match!” 12-12-12 will be the last such day until the new century. (Which might involve even higher lottery payoffs, after all.)

The Dredge is coming up next week, and someone has donated over a thousand dollars’ worth of art books which I will rush onto the tables. (If you have been yearning for a copy of the five-volume catalog from the sale of the Yves St. Laurent art collection, WITH its accompanying DVD, we’re ready for you.) And there are about thirty boxes of cookbooks which have come in this fall, and a selection from those–probably to include the Nancy Drew Cookbook as well as one of the early Barbie cookbooks–will be out for sale. (Of course, for half a billion, we might have sold you a few members of the Dredge to supply your winter caroling needs.)

There are seasonal closings coming up, which should kind of be read as “Days Not To Bring Books”. The library will be locked up tight on December 25 and January 1, and the reading rooms will be closed December 22 through December 26. The exhibit galleries will be open, as will the A.C. (Also Cookbooks) McClurg Bookstore. You will be able to see the last few days of the Quasquicentennial Exhibit and buy those last minute presents. (500 million would have just about bought out the store. Heck, it might have bought a goodly chunk of the exhibition.)

The reading rooms will also be closed December 14, for our Spring Cleaning Day. See, a lot of people have spring cleaning in the fall as well, and December 14 is TECHNICALLY still an autumn day. (Going to show that even without half a billion dollars, you can own a calendar.)

The end of the year also means, of course, those last minute donations to please the tax folks. Could you PLEASE not wait until December 31 to drop off your boxes of treasures? We’ll be working with a skeleton staff at that point, and their bones get cold dragging in banana boxes at one minute before closing time. I will, myself, be off watching the numerically interesting new year come in, and will not be around to drag in books again until 2013. In other words, with the threat of so many last minute banana boxes, I’m going to split.

(And half a billion dollars might have been enough to bribe to use other words in that last sentence. But maybe not.)

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